I just wrote out a long explanation of why an IBusinessLayer interface would be helpful when I think I get what you are saying about using a concrete class....



So, I create a new class, lets say ParentSequencerBO. This would not hit any tables right (and thus would always have a red X by it in the BO mapper)? it would look something like:







Then I would derive my actual BOs from it:







Then my User control would reference the abstract class ParentSequencerBusinessLayer and I'm good. See, I think you got it across here in the forum (if I'm getting it)!



P.S. the [codesnippet][/codesnippet] isn't working. I double checked for weird characters, pasted into and out of a text editor...but no joy. Maybe it is user permission thing?

I don't think I can explain this properly over the forum, but there is no need for an IBusinessLayer interface.  An interface is not the solution here...you can use the BusinessLayerBase class, which you will find commonly throughout the framework and in typed editors, etc.  This will give you the base functionality and will allow any type of BO to be handed over to a variable or property typed as this...but I still do not see a need for the IBusinessLayer interface. 

That is exactly what I'm doing. I'm going to have half dozen or so BOs that all have this sequencing functionality. With this interface I can build a reusable UI control/component to re-sequence elements within the BO. Though I might suggest that you provide a IBusinessLayer interface in the future. It would make this sort of thing easier. Then I could just inherit that interface for any of my own and life would be grand

What you are doing will definitely work.  There are two other things that you could do.  First, tack this on to my first example...create your own interface, as you have, and then associated this interface with your custom BusinessLayer class.  This is more structured and will be much easier to work with as your application grows.

As for your code snippet, I edited your post and then saved and it worked. There could be underlying characters that are being pasted in with your code causing the problem.  One thing to do is to paste it into notepad first then copy it from there.  THis way all special characters are stripped.

OK, what is the correct tag for code snippets. Obviously, the one's I'm using are correct.

Actually, the reason I was looking at an interface was that I have another class (a user control actually) that would interface with the common functionality of the special BOs. I.e. I need to reference the Interface in the other class, so I can call the known methods (the BOs will all have sequencing functionality, like MoveItemUp, MoveItemDown, etc.). Each BO would implement the methods as needed by the particular table.

What I ended up doing was to just create two variables, one as a BusinessLayer item and one as my interface item (IParentSequencerBO). Then provided a single public property for the BusinessLayer variable, set the interface variable to the same object. It seems to be working great. E.g. below in case my narrative is confusing.



If you have a better idea, I'm all ears.

You don't need an interface in this case as you would have to re-write the code in every BO that implemented it.  However, you can inherit the BusinessLayer.  Just create your own BO and then when you create a new business object, just change the inherits to your business layer class and it will use all of your modified code and features:

Then when you create a new business object through the Add Item template, you will need to adjust the inherits the first time (you will notice that the only BO code file that has a inherits declaration is in the MyBo.vb file.  This is so the BO Mapper does not overwrite your inherits statement when changed to use your BO class.  It would look like this in this example:

I don't suppose there is an interface for BusinessLayer is there? I have a set of Business objects that all have some common functionality, albeit affecting different tables. Specifically, they all have ordered records, which means there is a set of common things that can happen, like moving a record up or down in the order or determining the next sequence number. I would like to program against a common interface, but I also need the standard BusinessLayer functionality (add, edit, save, undo, remove, events etc.) If there was an interface to BusinessLayer, I could just extend it. If there isn't I could use some suggestions.

Yes, I was just showing the internal code of:

I am glad to hear that you are making progress.  Don't worry about the questions, that is what this forum is for!

This is how the BO internally executes the command right? The code I'd use it to just call the BO's appropriate Get command that uses ExecuteScalar, right?



It's taking a bit of time, but I think I'm starting to get this stuff a big Hope you all don't die of impatience first.